Steel Heart, Silver Lungs
by Aoi Umi Opallene
Summary: Francisco's act of conquest had brought Hank Rearden to a state close to Nirvana – but with a statute of limitations. Francisco had wanted to do more than that. He'd checked all premises, and had found nothing contradictory.


_"'Don't ignore your own desires, Mr. Rearden. Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.'"_

_"'...In fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions...There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body.'"_

_-_Francisco D'Anconia in _Atlas Shrugged_

Author's Note: Because the tenets of Ms. Rand's philosophy would in fact be inclusive of all consensual adult sexual relationships - And because these characters deserve better than to be backseated at the end of the novel - I present this piece of fanfic.

* * *

Hank Rearden sat in a rugged, low-backed chair that looked casually at home beside the cabin living-room fireplace. The furniture piece nonetheless effused a stately quality, perhaps lent by the erect posture of its inhabitant.

Hank Rearden, in spite of his stiff concentration on the papers held before his eyes, looked also casually at home. This was a place where ideas were birthed; honed and smeltered into solidified plans; where the frozen outdoor stasis was defied by minds working that much more nimbly to become prepared for conquest come spring.

Francisco D'Anconia, proud cabin proprietor and host, returned to the room carrying two steaming mugs: A savory cocoa blend splashed with a cognac-like grape spirit distilled in the Valley.

Rearden looked up, smiling eagerly in acceptance of the warming late-night refreshment. He set down the diagrams momentarily on a side table. Francisco promptly swept several of them up and spread them on the floor for his own perusal. Normally he would have meshed into the floor to achieve the closest possible viewing angle, but in order to take the drink, he sat upon a small cushion – yet was soon hunching over the floor to roughly the same effect.

Rearden took his drink leisurely, permitting himself to lean back into the chair for some moments of repose. _I'd like just once to see him drunk_, his ex-wife had once said about him. Here he was, drunk on the fierce serenity of the setting, on the assuredness of success ahead. The vapors of finely crafted liquor only served to magnify these sensations to a heightened, steady pitch.

Rearden was accustomed to this state by now. Through the cold, wind-swept days and evenings, such sessions with Francisco had become a common occurrence. On this night in particular, however, a developing feeling had finally settled into its proper thought-expression. This place – This valley – was truly a Paradise for Man, save one final element that was naggingly out of place.

"Francisco," he began. He knew that he did not risk interrupting, for Francisco had decided to take the drink prior to settling into work, and was not looking at the papers.

"Yes?" Francisco queried bemusedly. He always looked forward to Hank Rearden's opting to begin a conversation. It was unpredictable, but never boring. He could sense that this particular conversation would have nothing to do with work.

"When you think about…Dagny…" Rearden paused. Although he knew that no topic was off-limits with a man that he could trust, it felt unnatural to be so blunt in this regard. "How do _you_ deal with that?"

Francisco understood what was meant. He tightened his lips almost imperceptibly.

"You would know I am lying if I denied there was anything to deal with," Francisco stated. He looked Hank Rearden in the eye. "I respect Dagny – or anyone on her level – far too much to intrude on her decision. I learned it twice. What I do not have to offer her, I can either attempt to attain, or accept that I do not have."

Rearden took a sip of cocoa. He'd expected Francisco to assume this literal stance, despite understanding the deeper context of the question. He was game to play along.

"I think," said Rearden, "that you have plenty to offer her."

"As do you, good friend." Francisco smiled wistfully.

Each looked down at his mug and noticed that the level of the liquid was low. Francisco glanced briefly at the diagrams, but opted to rise and sweep both mugs into the kitchen for refreshment.

Rearden gazed into the distance. Somewhere beyond that wall, his former lover undoubtedly sat in the company of the greatest man that each of them had ever met. He was happy for her. He'd meant it. _I don't blame you._

"The thing is," Rearden ventured, still fixated past the wall, when he sensed Francisco's re-entry, "Not only do I wish to have Dagny; I also would like to know…in a sense…what it might be like to be in Dagny's place."

Francisco raised an eyebrow just so slightly. Before getting very far, he reached back into the kitchen for the liquor bottle, indicated it with a questioning glance at Rearden, and poured a further amount into his mug after receiving a shrug in response. Francisco poured a bit more for himself as well.

Returning to the room, Francisco sat gracefully upon the floor next to the armchair and leaned his back upon its side, his gaze now oriented toward another wall-trancending distance perpendicular to Rearden's.

"What I mean is," continued Rearden, "Why is it that she should worship at the altar of John Galt, and she alone?"

Francisco knew more fully what Rearden meant than he suspected even Rearden would care to admit to himself. Francisco had seen the look in Rearden's eyes when he'd been welcomed into the valley. Hank Rearden's deliverance, his ultimate intellecual release, had been met with John Galt's level gaze, a welcoming embrace, a nod and a smile of approval. Hank Rearden had projected an air more secure, more vibrant, more _full _than Francisco had ever seen of him before. The sight had pleased him. After much work, the reward had been gratifying.

Soon after, Francisco and Hank had stood shoulder to shoulder, each calculating and accepting his losses, as John Galt and Dagny Taggart strode into their new life together. There were gains in seeing the joy of those whom they loved. There were longings unfulfilled that they knew they must come to accept, as no fact about the pair's mutual affection could be denied.

Francisco had seen what Hank Rearden had held within during the span of time since. It was familiar to him, as familiar as twelve years' worth of such self-denial. Francisco's ordeal had been bearable due to the nobility of his convictions and the subsequent rightness of his decision. Hank's suffering now was without cause. It had saddened Francisco, somewhat, to see the man slide into a quasi-satisfied state, just a bit lower than his potential. Francisco's act of conquest had brought Hank Rearden to a state close to Nirvana – but with a statute of limitations. Francisco had wanted to do more than that.

What Francisco had not known was the extent to which Hank now pined for Dagny, and the extent to which he desired to be nearer to Galt. He was now becoming privy.

Rearden sighed. He gulped the beverage and held it close. In the warm haze of the room, he permitted himself to feel at ease with a man whose judgment he did not fear. He had nothing further to say, so he bathed in that environment of comfortable silence.

Francisco felt poised on the cusp of action. What action, he could not preciesly state just yet. His muscles tensed as he knew the desire to act – to change, to improve a situation.

"You know," said Francisco. "When Dagny was young, one of the many characteristics that set her apart was her inability to feel any shame. No reservations at all, from the very start, whereas so many vapid young women her age would have succumbed to the so-called 'impropriety' of it all. She knew that that was irrelevant."

Rearden listened, always intrigued by new light shed upon his greatest love. However, this wasn't truly new information at all – He had already known it. He had experienced it. He smiled. "I know."

"One need not give it a great deal of thought," Francisco continued, "to conclude that the same logic applies to any mutually consented sexual relation."

Hank framed in his mind the context of himself with Dagny, this time with his own ego at the center. She had taught him this lesson. This, also, he knew. "Mm. Yes." He allowed his mind to slip back into those days. The latest, the best, when he had been so closely on the brink of allowing all the implications of freedom to flood into his mind.

He sank further into the warmth and felt it wash through his body. The comfortable peace of relaxation, of security. It swelled from beneath his toes, to his chest, and down his slackened abdomen. It hung still and grew. At first a targeted desire for the woman he had known, it fell into the abstract. It was a feeling he felt certain he did not wish to lose right now.

Francisco breathed. It was something he had not done before. But the idea had surfaced on several occasions, most of them with Hank. He had already had the opportunity to apply sound logic. He'd checked all premises, and had found nothing contradictory. He had conveyed as much right now in his most recent utterance, and he took Hank's complicit acknowledgement as permission to act.

Francisco rose to his feet. He looked down with appreciation for Hank's sublimely relaxed form and a longing to capture it. He moved in with purpose, cupping his left hand upon the center of Hank's current gravity, kneeling upon the armrest and leaning inwards toward his chest.

Hank's eyes shot open to a half-lid. He tensed. His eyes fought to open wider, but there was little more to take in with the eyes that he could not already see. He saw Francisco's face before him, turning upwards, looking directly at him, openly revealing a resolve.

Hank searched wildly within his own mind for the possibility of a contradiction. This was against what he had known, but as he'd just confirmed, he had already learned so potently that societal prescriptions were of little bearing on his capacity to feel. No bearing. None at all. He heaved a breath. Would Dagny forgive this? _Of course._

Francisco quelled Hank's slight signs of unrest with a touch to the forehead and a sweeping aside of his hair. He realized then that he had very much longed to perform this action again after that first inaugural gesture at Rearden's mills.

Hank allowed himself to slacken under Francisco's partial weight, as Francisco dropped his hips into the chair to solidify his presence there.

"You are a man who deserves _all_ that I can show him in this valley," Francisco proclaimed. It was more than a mere appeal – Hank felt the statement's finality and was ready to accept. He lay back, fully complicit, but waiting batedly to see what direction Francisco had in mind.

Francisco breathed into the space behind Hank's left ear. He touched his hair further, stroking it, showing tender regard for the precious cargo carried within the fragile skull of a man. His lips, more moist and full than Hank would have expected, traveled from the side of his jawbone down to the V of his shirt collar. Francisco proceeded to unbutton it without pause.

Rearden was not certain just who was possessing whom. Francisco acted, but with such a fervent dependency on Rearden's remaining receptive. This tenuousness fostered a hyper-awareness that was somewhat novel to him. He moaned as he felt Francisco caress his chest, then seize upon its most sensitive area. It was already becoming unbearable to simply lie back – Hank was driven to reciprocate. He attempted to sit up, but Francisco gently held his shoulder down.

"Shh," Francisco instructed. "I see your intent, but it might benefit you to know that I'll derive the greatest pleasure if…" His mouth brought warm wetness and a soft bite to the other side of Rearden's chest. "…If you allow me to proceed for the moment."

Rearden lay back again, his head spinning. Not his thoughts, not his emotions, but the sum total of his self, caught up for the first time in months in such a situation. He knew that a man must not allow himself to go in such intervals without this type of intimacy. Despite his instructions, he reached two strong arms about Francisco's back, then settled on his waist, so as to keep him in place – to capture the moment's reality for his own open vault of experiences.

Francisco smiled. He had presumed as much – that Hank would not be satisfied as a fleeting bystander. Hank Rearden now knew how to possess this moment as he did all others. Francisco felt immensely proud. The time had naturally come – Francisco knew to reward this feeling that Hank had allowed him.

He unbuttoned the front of Hank's slacks and slid further down to the base of the chair. He sat, legs straddling Hank's thigh. Hank felt firm pressure between Francisco's legs, and was certain that Francisco had meant for him to feel it. He reeled with the delightful unreality of the situation. To Francisco's satisfaction, Hank swelled beneath his cupped hands.

Francisco ventured a few strokes with a semi-curved palm. Rearden was not completely prepared for the relative roughness of a man's palm, but as their eyes met, the vivid current between their consciousnesses smoothed all external concerns. Soon enough, the contact was lubricated with warm saliva and Rearden knew the tenderest physical expression that a man could convey to another.

He breathed. His intake fluttered in time with the tides he experienced.

"You know what I am doing…?" Francisco opened.

Rearden craned his neck to get a proper snapshot. He took up the thread. "Apart from the obvious…?" He winced with some unexpected pleasure.

"I am mining the best from you. For me, and for you. It's…." he waited for Hank's inevitable, twisted and delighted grin to emerge. "…well worth the investment, wouldn't you say?" He matched the grin.

A symphony of under- and over-currents continued on, the crackling of the fire quite audible in absence of any further discussion. Suddenly, Hank felt his shoulders jerk violently back into the chair, his thighs and waist tighten, and the elaborately twisted knots inside him leaving through his feet while he ejected without aim. Francisco held on all the while, reaping his own sense of reward. His smile was faultlessly empathetic with Hank's release. He breathed out in time with Hank, and stroked his chest and collar.

Hank closed his eyes and lay, breathing heavily, wanting for all intents to solidify this sequence of events in his mind. He had never expected to experience what had just occurred. He felt the need to damn himself once more – but now, for not having been prepared enough to integrate such an experience into his knowledge with the desired clarity. His mind still grappled several steps behind…

Francisco stood, poised first with a tenseness. "That…" He observed his own words catching up with his thought process. "…is, indeed, one way to deal with the loss of Dagny." He grinned. His eyebrows tensed in a strange salute to the woman they both loved.

This brought Rearden's own thoughts up to level. He sat up, looking about the fixtures in the room as if they had achieved an enhanced state of clarity. His eyes met Francisco's.

Though Francisco feared he had caught a distressed flicker, Rearden's face settled upon a projection staunchly devoid of pain, of fear, and of guilt. It was now more serene than before. Relieved at having achieved his goal, Francisco relaxed. It was perfect. He spread his arms wide, then clenched his fists. Rearden knew that Francisco was capturing and keeping it all, too, in his way.

"'It's all so much'," Francisco mused, "…Is what I told Dagny. To assure her that I was okay, _more_ than okay, when I assumed I had surrendered her to _you_." He chuckled. "Do you know what I think is funny?"

Rearden opted for an earnest answer while moving to adjust his clothing. "The fact that…the world is sometimes still more and bigger than even the most inquiring minds had thought previously?"

Francisco lowered his arms and stared as Hank belted his slacks. "Why, yes, that's precisely it." He laughed. "I couldn't have said it better."

Hank had been easing into the sleeves of his buttoned shirt, but stopped. He was so warm, he really didn't need it. He didn't need it for what he decided to do next in that moment, either. He carefully set his mug onto the table, strode the few paces to Francisco's standing figure, and seized from behind the one he knew now that he could permit himself to have. There were no limits in this place, and how could he not have realized this sooner? Hank Rearden cut an open-mouthed kiss with the magnificent d'Anconia heir, which was as good as a handshake on the promise of reciprocation in the near – perhaps very near – future.


End file.
